9. Top Cloud Computing Stocks

We never say buy, sell or hold here at Talkin' Cloud. But we have tracked some of the best-performing cloud computing stocks from time to time. And in fact, this old story from 2012 still pushes into our top 10 for 2013.

What it means today: Stock performance can vary greatly from month to month and quarter to quarter. For a longer-term look at the best cloud services providers, check out our Top 100 CSP list.

7. Intermedia Cloud Outage

Intermedia, the hosted Exchange provider, suffered a massive outage in Sept. 2013. Some MSP partners were outraged. But overall, Intermedia has come on strong -- apologizing to channel partners while further expanding into hosted VoIP and unified communications services.

What it means today: In addition to mitigating the outage issue, Intermedia promised to improve social media communications if service issues pop up in the future. Ultimately, the outage was secondary news. The big news hook was Intermedia's relative silence during the first few hours of the issue.

6. Should IBM Buy SoftLayer or Rackspace?

Talkin' Cloud closely tracked rumors that IBM was going to buy SoftLayer in early 2013. But by March 2013, we raised the big question: Would buying SoftLayer or Rackspace make more sense? IBM ultimately answered the question by purchasing SoftLayer in June 2013.

5. Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps Trade Blows

When Microsoft upgraded its Office 365 cloud suite on Feb. 27, the Google Apps team countered with several body blows. The ongoing SaaS war between Microsoft and Google delivers plenty of colorful commentary. But the real winners are cloud brokers that want easier-to-use services for their customers.

What it means today: Fast forward and the war now involves both SaaS and IaaS, thanks to Microsoft Office 365/Azure vs. Google Apps/Google Compute Engine. Let the fireworks -- and price cuts for partners and customers -- continue.

4. Google Apps vs. Office 365 In Gov't Market

What it means today: Both Microsoft and Google say their SaaS businesses remain in rapid-growth mode. But we certainly see room in the market for rival business productivity SaaS providers -- including Zoho.

What it means today: More companies are entering the CSB market -- including Nuvotera, which made its CSB move in November 2013. Just be careful, folks. Some CSBs offer immature services and it's unclear how some providers are funded.

What it means today: Google sits near the top of our annual Top 100 Cloud Services Provider report and list for 2013. And the new Google Compute Engine should help to further accelerate cloud revenues at the company. Still, Google will need to more clearly articulate its strategy to SMB channel partners. And in fact... we should be sharing some more news on that front soon.

1. OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Update

In the cloud computing software wars, the loudest shots typically involve OpenStack and CloudStack. Both are popular open source approaches to building public and private clouds. And our OpenStack vs CloudStack report in early 2013 certainly grabbed eyeballs.

What it means today: Overall, we think OpenStack is now leading the open source cloud dialog. But there's not much time to celebrate -- since Amazon's own cloud platform -- AWS -- seems to winning the IaaS war.